Originally Posted by Blitzen 
The reason i go for nVidia over ATI is the fact that the ATI manufacturers (Sapphire/Powercolor/ETC) all seem to have low quality cards. There is no denyiny they are quick but thats sometimes not enough.
NVidia on the other hand with the likes of Gainward/BFG/Evga/etc seems to have far better quality.
I have had to RMA EVERY ATI card i have ever purchased (5 of them).
I have never had to RMA a nVidia card (8 of them)
Although those nVidia partners are very good( no one can deny that specially with the upgrade EVGA offers and the 10year warranty from BFG) but there are good ATI partners as well... HIS and Gigabyte are my first choice ATI manufacturers. Top quality components and good support after purchase as well.
Originally Posted by staffsMike I must admit my experience (other than mobile cards) with ATi has been a bit bad. That said though my last work used saphire cards in industrial PC's and the faliure rate was next to 0..
I would break my nvidia habbit for these new cards almost certainly
What about asus for ATi cards? I mean the service is dire but the cards are probably good if they are anything like their motherboards
My experience has been worse with nVidia than with ATI specially with driver support. Its all dependant on how you use the card and also how you view good support.
ATI drivers might not always perform the best but you can almost swear that they will at least work and not cause your computer to have random crashes. Too many nVidia drivers have caused my PC to crash over the last 5 months, the nVidia card I owned 3 years prior was the same and the nVidia cards my friends owned over the last 2 years gave them the same problems with drivers and game support(having to always change drivers to play a specific game and then changing back because every other game crashes with those drivers).
Enthusiasts might not like ATI drivers for lack of performance improvements but at least they work and don't break your PC when you up grade.